The parent implementation introduced sandboxMode and approvalPolicy as generic SessionHeader fields, then propagated those fields through both persistence backends, session-query indexes, collision checks, policy-specific seed-boundary folds, catalogs, and a broad test matrix. That storage plane is unnecessary: Session already accepts a validated constructor seed, and persistence captures that seed when the session is announced before committing its first batch.
Capture each parent override synchronously at delegation, append source-tagged sandbox/mode and approval/policy records after the optional fork prefix, and create the child with that combined seed. Keeping header.seedLength at the original fork-prefix length preserves lineage while ordinary last-event-wins folds make the inherited records outrank stale parent history and remain subordinate to later child switches. Unswitched parents still stamp nothing, so children continue to follow deployment defaults.
Remove the generic header fields and every persistence/query/schema branch built around them. Collapse the inheritance suite from ten leaking scenarios to four owned-context cases covering real filesystem confinement, stale fork precedence, delegation-time capture, and the no-override path. The assembled headless snapshot now asserts the persisted inheritance event directly.
This keeps the security behavior while restoring policy ownership to the existing event log and deleting the speculative durability machinery that the original tests did not exercise.
Retarget the feature branch to the current master tip without rewriting its existing review history. Keeping this as a dedicated merge checkpoint makes the later simplification diff attributable to the stacked child rather than mixing base movement with design changes.
Resolve the identified-message API drift in the feature tests by constructing complete user messages, reading the nested tool-result message shape, and adapting the prompt-submit listener signature. Preserve both sides of the user-approval conflict: master’s createUserMessage wrapper and the feature’s inherited-policy attribution.
Regenerate the Cordis and persistence catalogs, re-record the session README pair, and refresh the affected ACP/headless fixtures so derived artifacts describe the merged source rather than either parent in isolation.
Validated with the focused policy/session/persistence/query suites (430 tests), focused ACP/headless snapshots (3 tests), build, doc-sync (25 gates), lint, hygiene, and git diff checks.
CI per-file coverage flagged the new sandboxMode/approvalPolicy branches:
invalid-type cases in both session header validation tables, and a shared
persistence-contract case pinning that both backends round-trip the
baselines verbatim and keep absent fields ABSENT (presence is the signal
the policy owners branch on).
Replace send/steer/inject with one Agent.send primitive over the
(target × wakeup) matrix; followup/steer/inject become fixed-preset
alias methods on the now-abstract Agent class. Coalesce context/message
into user/message (injected context is a non-user source). Replace
agent/queued with agent/inbox/enqueue/dequeue/discard, add cancel
keepInbox, and add a FIFO-conservation invariant.
context/message previously defaulted to a <context source="…">…</context>
wrapper. No model is trained on a <context> tag either, and message
framing does not belong on the session surface: the surface projects the
durable log, and a caller that wants a frame formats its own content —
which the one heavy producer (workspace-context) already does with its own
<system-reminder> frame, opting out via 'raw'. The tag only added
machinery — ContextEnvelope plus an envelope field threaded through
InjectOptions, HookContext, the context/message event, and the agent-loop
inject/additionalContexts plumbing.
context/message now projects its content verbatim as a user-role message,
sharing one deriveEventMessage case with user/message and steering/message.
ContextEnvelope and every envelope field are removed; context/message.meta
still carries durable, model-hidden JSON state. Regenerated catalogs and
website API; refreshed the three affected keyless snapshots (envelope field
only; timestamps unchanged).
Broadens and renames the steering Agent Note to cover both envelope
removals as one decision.
Agent Note: .agents/notes/implemented/simplification/2026-07-20-unwrap-injected-content-envelopes.md
steering/message previously rendered inside a <steering source="…">
envelope like context/message. No model is trained on a <steering> tag,
so the framing is arbitrary markup the model was never taught to read;
recorded transcripts show it treating the instruction as third-party
metadata and refusing it. Framing also does not belong on the session
surface — a caller that wants a frame formats its own content. It now
projects verbatim as a plain user-role message; the <context> envelope is
untouched and renderTagged becomes context-only.
Agent Note: .agents/notes/implemented/simplification/2026-07-20-unwrap-steering-message-projection.md
A subagent child's recursion depth lived only in runtime AgentOptions,
so a persisted child came back from resume counted as top-level and
maxDepth stopped binding after every restart. Add
SessionHeader.delegationDepth, round-trip it through the JSONL and
SQLite backends (SQLite schema v5), restore it on agent-loop resume,
and write it when the in-process backends create a child. The seam now
owns the shared depth vocabulary (delegationDepthOf): the persisted
header is authoritative and monotone — runtime options may deepen it
but never lower it.